Garry Kasparov
Number of games in database: 2,346
Years covered: 1973 to 2015
Last FIDE rating: 2812
Highest rating achieved in database: 2851Overall record: +766 -115 =752 (69.9%)*
* Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
713 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

One of the greatest players of all time, Kasparov was undisputed World Champion from 1985 until 1993, and Classical World Champion from 1993 until 2000. Known to chess fans world wide as the <Beast From Baku> on account of his aggressive and highly successful style of play, his main early influence was the combative and combinative style of play displayed by Alexander Alekhine.

Early Years

Originally named Garry Kimovich Weinstein (or Weinshtein), he was born in Baku, in what was then the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (now the Republic of Azerbaijan), and is the son of Klara Shagenovna Kasparova and Kim Moiseyevich Weinstein. At five years old, young Garry Weinstein taught himself how to play chess from watching his relatives solve chess puzzles in a newspaper. His immense natural talent was soon realized and from age 7, he attended the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku (where for some time he was known as "Garry Bronstein".*). At 10, he began training at the Mikhail Botvinnik Soviet chess school. He was first coached by Vladimir Andreevich Makogonov and later by Alexander Shakarov. Five years after his father's untimely death from leukaemia, the twelve year old chess prodigy adopted the Russian-sounding name Garry Kasparov (Kas-PARE-off) a reference to his mother's Armenian maiden name, Gasparyan (or Kasparian).

Championships

Junior Twelve-year old Kasparov won the Soviet Junior Championship, held in Tbilisi in 1976 scoring 7/9, and repeated his success in 1977, winning with a score of 8½ of 9. The next several years were spent marking his rise as a world-class talent. He became World Junior Champion in 1980 in Dortmund, the same year he earned the grandmaster title.

National He first qualified for the Soviet Chess Championship at age 15 in 1978, the youngest ever player at that level. He won the 64-player Swiss system tournament at Daugavpils on tiebreak over Igor Vasilievich Ivanov, to capture the sole qualifying place.
He was joint Soviet Champion in 1980-81 with Lev Psakhis ** and in 1988 Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov tied in the Super-Soviet Championship***. In 2004, Garry Kasparov won the Russian Championships 2004 (2004) with a stunning +5 score.

World On the basis of his result in the 1981 Soviet Championship, which doubled as a zonal tournament for the USSR region, he earned a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonal tournament, which he won, to qualify for the Candidates Tournament matches that were held in 1983 and 1984. At age 19, he was the youngest Candidate since Robert James Fischer, who was 15 when he qualified in 1958. At this stage, he was already the #2-rated player in the world, trailing only world champion Karpov on the January 1983 list. These Candidates matches were the first and last Candidates matches Kasparov contested, as he declined to participate in the Candidates held under the auspices of the PCA in 2002 to decide a challenger to his successor as classical World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Kasparov's first Candidates match in Moscow was a best-of-ten affair against Alexander Beliavsky, whom he defeated 6–3 (+4 -1 =4). After much political ado, Kasparov defeated Viktor Korchnoi in London in the best-of-12 semi-final match by 7–4 (+4 -1 =6), and in early 1984 in Vilnius he defeated former World Champion Vasily Smyslov in the best-of-16 finals played by 8.5-4.5 (+4 =9 -0) to earn his challenge against Karpov. By the time the match with Smyslov was played, Kasparov had become the number-one ranked player in the world with a FIDE rating of 2710. He became the youngest ever world number-one, a record that lasted 12 years until being broken by Vladimir Kramnik in January 1996 and again by his former pupil, Magnus Carlsen in 2010.

At one stage during the Karpov-Kasparov World Championship Match (1984), Kasparov trailed 5-0 in the first-to-win-6 match. He then fought back to win three games and bring the score to 5–3 in Karpov's favour after 48 games, making it the longest world championship match ever. At that point, the match was ended without result by the then FIDE President, the late Florencio Campomanes, with Karpov thus retaining the title. Further details can be found in the match link at the head of this paragraph. Kasparov won the best-of-24 games Karpov-Kasparov World Championship Match (1985) in Moscow by 13–11, winning the 24th and last game with Black. He was then 22, the youngest ever World Champion, and broke the record held by Mikhail Tal for over 20 years. Karpov exercised his right to a rematch, the Karpov-Kasparov World Championship Rematch (1986), which took place in 1986, hosted jointly in London and Leningrad, with each city hosting 12 games. Kasparov scored of 12½–11½, retaining the title. The fourth match, the Kasparov-Karpov World Championship Match (1987) in Seville. Karpov had been directly seeded into and won the final match of the Candidates' Matches to again become the official challenger. Kasparov retained his title by winning the final game and drawing the match 12–12. The fifth and last championship match between the two, Kasparov-Karpov World Championship Match (1990), was held in New York and Lyon in 1990, with each city hosting 12 games. Kasparov won by 12½–11½. In their five world championship matches, the combined game tally was +21 -19 =104 in Kasparov’s favour.

Kasparov subsequently defended his title against Nigel Short under the auspices of the PCA in 1993, and against Viswanathan Anand in 1995. Five years later, in 2000 (Kasparov-Kramnik World Championship Match (2000)), Kasparov finally relinquished his crown to his former student, Vladimir Kramnik who was granted the right to challenge without having to qualify, the first time this had happened since 1935, when Alexander Alekhine selected Max Euwe as his challenger.
Subsequently, Kasparov remained the top rated player in the world, ahead of both Kramnik and the FIDE World Champions, on the strength of a series of wins in major tournaments.

Under the "Prague Agreement” which was put together by Yasser Seirawan to reunite the two titles, Kasparov was to play a match against the 2002 FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov in September 2003. But this match was cancelled when Ponomariov was dissatisfied with the terms of the contract. Subsequent plans for a match against 2004 FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, to be held in January 2005 in the United Arab Emirates fell through due to lack of funding. Shortly after this, Kasparov announced his retirement from competitive chess.

In an interview in 2007, Kasparov said that <…my decision in 1993 to break away from the world chess federation, FIDE, with Nigel Short was the worst mistake of my career. It was a serious miscalculation on my part. I thought we could start fresh with a professional organisation, but there was little support among the players. It led to short-term progress in commercial sponsorship for chess, but in the long run hurt the game...> ****

Classical Tournaments

In 1978, Kasparov won the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk as a wild card entry, a victory which convinced Kasparov he could aim for the World Championship. He played in a grandmaster tournament in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia in 1979 while still unrated, due to Korchnoi’s withdrawal. He took first place with an undefeated record, two points ahead of the field. Game Collection: Banja Luka 1979 He emerged with a provisional rating of 2595, immediately landing at world number 15, a feat only surpassed by Gata Kamsky in July 1990. His first win in a superclass-level international tournament was scored at Bugojno, Yugoslavia in 1982 and his win in Linares in 2002 is the tenth victory in a record for the most consecutive victories in super tournaments: Linares 4 (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, Wijk aan Zee 3 (1999, 2000, 2001), Sarajevo 2 (1999, 2000) and Astana 1 (2001). Kasparov also holds the record for most consecutive professional tournament victories, placing first or equal first in 15 individual tournaments from 1981 to 1990. It started with the 1981 USSR Championship and finished in Linares in 1990. His five epic title matches against Karpov were held during this period. Subsequently, Kasparov won Linares again in 1992, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005, the latter being his swan song from the game.

Olympiads

Kasparov played in eight Olympiads. He represented the Soviet Union four times, in 1980, 1982, 1986 and 1988, and Russia four times: in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 2002 playing board 1 on each occasion apart from 1980 (2nd reserve) and 1982 (2nd board). In 82 games, he scored (+50 =29 -3), for 78.7% and won a total of 19 medals, including 8 team gold medals, 5 board golds, 2 performance golds, 2 performance silvers and 2 board bronzes.
Kasparov also represented the USSR once in Youth Olympiad competition at Graz in 1981, when he played board 1 for the USSR board 1, scoring 9/10 (+8 =2 -0), the team winning the gold medal.

Team chess

Kasparov made his international teams debut for the USSR at age 16 in the 1980 European Team Championship at Skara and played for Russia in the 1992 edition of that championship. He won a total of five medals including at Skara 1980, as USSR 2nd reserve, 5½/6 (+5 =1 -0), team gold, board gold and at Debrecen 1992, Russia board 1, 6/8 (+4 =4 -0), team gold, board gold, performance silver.

Matches

<Computer> Kasparov defeated the chess computer Deep Thought (Computer) in both games of a two-game match in 1989. In February 1996, he defeated IBM's chess computer Deep Blue (Computer) with three wins and two draws and one loss. In 1997, an updated version of Deep Blue defeated Kasparov 3½–2½ in a highly publicised six-game match. The match was even after five games but Kasparov lost Game 6 - Deep Blue vs Kasparov, 1997 - to lose the match. This was the first time a computer had ever defeated a world champion in match play. In January 2003, he played and drew a six game FIDE Man-Machine WC (2003) match against Deep Junior (Computer). In November 2003, he played and drew a four-game Man-Machine World Chess Championship (2003) against the computer program X3D Fritz (Computer) X3D Fritz, although he was constrained through the use of a virtual board, 3D glasses and a speech recognition system.

<Human – classical> Kasparov played several matches apart from his matches in the World Championship cycles. Full details can be seen at Game Collection: Match Kasparov!.

<Human – rapid> In 1998, Kasparov played a blitz match against Kramnik in Moscow, that match being drawn +7-7=10. He fared better in the 2000 internet blitz match against Judit Polgar, winning one and drawing one. The following year, he played a blitz match against the many times Greek speed chess champion Hristos Banikas of Greece, winning 5 and drawing one. In his 2002 blitz against Elisabeth Paehtz in Munich, he won 6-0. Later in 2002, Kasparov lost a four game rapid match (+1 -2 =1) over two days in December 2002 in New York City against Anatoly Karpov. In 2009 in Valencia, Spain, he again played Karpov, and won the Kasparov-Karpov Rapid Match (2009) 3-1 and the Kasparov-Karpov Blitz Match (2009) by 6-2. In 2011, as part of his Chess In Schools campaign, he played a two game Kasparov-Lagrave Blitz Match (2011) in Clichy France, winning by 1.5-0.5. A few months later in October 2011, he won the Kasparov-Short Blitz Match (2011) 4.5-3.5 (+3 -2 =3), breaking the deadlock after game 7 by winning game 8 to win the match.

Kasparov's ratings achievements include being rated world #1 according to Elo rating almost continuously from 1986 until his retirement in 2005. He was the world number-one ranked player for 255 months, a record that far outstrips all other previous and current number-one ranked players. Kasparov had the highest Elo rating in the world continuously from 1986 to 2005. However, Vladimir Kramnik equaled him in the January 1996 FIDE ratings list, technically supplanting him because he played more games. He was also briefly ejected from the list following his split from FIDE in 1993, but during that time he headed the rating list of the rival PCA. At the time of his retirement, he was still ranked #1 in the world, with a rating of 2812. In January 1990 Kasparov achieved the (then) highest FIDE rating ever, passing 2800 and breaking Bobby Fischer's old record of 2785. On the July 1999 and January 2000 FIDE rating lists Kasparov reached a 2851 Elo rating, which became the highest rating ever achieved until surpassed by Magnus Carlsen in 2013. There was a time in the early 1990s when Kasparov was over 2800 and the only person in the 2700s was Anatoly Karpov.

Other

Under Kasparov's tutelage, Carlsen became the youngest ever to achieve a FIDE rating higher than 2800, and the youngest ever world number one. Kasparov also assisted Anand’s preparation for the Anand-Topalov World Chess Championship (2010) against challenger Veselin Topalov. Since his retirement, Kasparov has concentrated much of his time and energy in Russian politics. He is also a prolific author, most famously his <My Great Predecessors> series. His politics and authorship are discussed at some detail in the wiki article and at his official website cited below. In 2007, he was ranked 25th in The Daily Telegraph's list of 100 greatest living geniuses and has won 11 Chess Oscars.

Kasparov has been married three times: first to Masha, with whom he had a daughter, Polina (b. 1993), before divorcing; to Yulia, with whom he had a son, Vadim (b. 1996) before their 2005 divorce; and to Daria, with whom he also has a daughter, Aida (b. 2006).

TheFocus: <The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early> - Garry Kasparov.

TheFocus: <His behavior at the board should draw warning cards. In his defense I’ve seen him behave badly against Deep Blue where such antics have no effect. Perhaps all the energy and passion that he puts into his game bubbles to the surface and he is unaware of the effect this has on his opponents. Is he not embarrassed when he sees himself on video?> - Yasser Seirawan about Garry Kasparov, in response to the question “Who is the most irritating opponent you have faced.”

TheFocus: <Kasparov crushed everyone in the opening—in his best years he was head and shoulders above the rest and it was simply impossible to play him as Black. He gave chess an incredible number of ideas. He worked a lot and deserved his results, but when people began to approach him in terms of knowledge, with the help of computer programs, Garry stopped playing. I’d like to have seen how he would have played when everything leveled out and he no longer had such an advantage. Would he have won tournament after tournament? I think not. He probably realized that and quit. He says something else, but I think that’s the way it was> - Rafael Vaganian, talking to Sergey Kim in July 2014.

TheFocus: <Well, I’m probably biased, but I think we have seen the best already. The time controls and emphasis on the sporting element are lowering the quality. The sport element now dominates the art and science elements of chess. I think we saw the best quality of chess in the 80’s and 90’s’> - Garry Kasparov, interviewed in 2005.

AsosLight: "I was taken from my apartment in Moscow to this spaceship. We went to some star. After that I said "Please bring me back" because the next day I had to go to Kalmykia and then to Ukraine, and they said "No problem, Kirsan, you have time.""

TheFocus: <He is the man who regrets leaving chess. He misses the attention he got in chess, somehow he wants to be there. Maybe he should play again> - Viswanathan Anand, responding to criticisms of his play by Garry Kasparov.

TheFocus: <I must make this very clear, and people are not listening: I have no interest [in coming back to professional chess]. Because I accomplished everything I wanted in the game of chess, and now I enjoy it immensely, but playing professionally is a very different thing. Let us not forget, I am working with Magnus, and that is my professional work. You cannot combine these two things. I’m happy that I played well with Karpov – well, is a huge overstatement. Karpov played some very good moves, but the quality of his chess was not stable, sometimes it dropped quite dramatically, and also his time handling. As a professional player you know that very often your game depends on your opponent> - Garry Kasparov (interviewed by Robert Fontaine.

TheFocus: <It is no longer the old-fashioned game, when two big champions play the game and one is smoking a cigar while the other one is drinking coffee, and they look at the board, and it takes ages to make a move. Every move is like an enigma for those who do not belong to this temple of ultimate chess truths. Now they just look at the computer screen, push a button, move the mouse, touch the screen, and the machine can give you quite an objective evaluation. If it’s a bad move, the machine will show that it’s a bad move. The machines don’t know everything, but you can no longer hide behind the authority of the player who made the move> - Garry Kasparov.

norami: If you want you can talk with Garry this afternoon. He's promoting his new book in a C-SPAN2 segment that according to the schedule will go from 2:18 to 3:04 Eastern Time. The book, entitled "Winter is Coming", is an anti-Putin book.

1d410: Putin wants to cooperate. The west is just bitter because the EU isn't allowed to just start gobbling up countries like the Ukraine so the ridiculous western media put up a stunt and started bashing Putin. That clown Hillary Clinton even seriously compared him to Hitler.

alexmagnus: Meanwile in on the sport/politics border: the "Spartak" club, whose member Kasparov was, wrote a book about its history and prominent sportspeople from it. Kasparov is not mentioned there. Fell victim to Orwellian memory hole.

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